From 2 Properties to 6: Scaling Success in the Short-Term Rental Market with Merritt Harris

Quick Summary

Merritt Harris shares his journey of growing from managing two Airbnb properties to co-hosting six others in less than a year. He discusses strategies for scaling a short-term rental (STR) business, leveraging social media for client acquisition, and the importance of building strong systems and teams. Merritt emphasizes the role of design, market selection, and consistent effort in achieving success in the STR industry.

Key Points

• Social media, networking, and organic referrals were key to acquiring new clients.
• Rural markets can provide less competition but require strong vendor relationships and logistical planning.
• Well-designed properties with unique features consistently outperform others, boosting occupancy rates and revenue.
• Investing in property updates and refreshing listings can significantly enhance performance.
• Having a dependable local property manager and vendor network is essential for managing operations effectively. Remote management is feasible with robust systems and teams in place.
• Co-hosting generates cash flow to reinvest in personal property purchases and arbitrage opportunities. Co-hosting businesses have resale value, providing potential exit strategies for investors.

Full Transcript

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Jeremy:

We are live with the short-term rental Pro podcast, guys. I'm here with my man Merritt, straight out of Upstate New York. I was going to say rural New York earlier, but you corrected me—Syracuse, New York, is a city, guys, for those wondering.

But Merritt is someone who I've had the real privilege to grow a relationship with over the last few months. I actually met him in L.A.—maybe we'll talk about how we met on this episode. It's been awesome that Merritt has actually joined us, joined our program, and our community. We're really looking forward to growing Merritt's business out and reaching new heights.

So, Merritt, thank you so much for coming today. Tell us about yourself and how you got into Airbnb and how you built your property management co-host business.

Merritt: Yeah, man, thanks so much for the intro. Yeah, not rural Upstate New York—Syracuse, New York. Only well known for the SU basketball team, I guess that's the one thing it's really known for.

But anyways, yeah, my name is Merritt. Fun fact: my wife is friends with Boeheim's daughter. They hang out—they hung out this week, actually.

Jeremy: Oh, wow.

Merritt: And she wasn't aware of the connection. She doesn't really follow sports, and she was like, "Boeheim? Cool." And I'm like, "You're literally friends with the most famous person's daughter in Syracuse, and you didn't know it?" It's really funny.

But anyways, yeah, I have two of my own Airbnbs—soon three. So, I own a duplex, and I own a single-family house. The single-family actually started as an arbitrage deal, and then I closed on it almost exactly a year ago. Actually, yeah, I converted the duplex to a midterm model. I'm currently furnishing the upper floor right now—I just finished some renovations. And the single-family is in the top 10 properties in the Syracuse area, which is great. Not a super saturated market, so it's not super impressive.

But then I also have a co-hosting property management company. We manage six, plus my two—soon to be three. They're mostly in this area, and then I have one in the Thousand Islands, and there's one down in Deposit, New York, which is like fly-fishing—right on the Delaware River, which is a fly-fishing area.

I built that out pretty fast because I started in November, and so I went from my two properties to adding the six others in less than a year. I'm currently hoping to scale and grow the operation.

Jeremy: So, how did you initially find these co-host clients?

Merritt: Yeah, so I decided almost a year ago, in August last year, that I was going to start posting on social media regularly. I had listened to a Bigger Pockets podcast where Brandon Turner was actually a guest appearance, even though he used to be the host. They were talking about social media and the power of social media marketing, and he basically gave some tools and just said, "Consistency."

So, I made this commitment to posting five reels a week, and I just started kind of plugging away. And as everyone who does this knows, at first, you just kind of fumble through and try to figure out what you're talking about and who your target audience is. But I really had a passion for my, at-the-time, pretty new Airbnb, so I just started talking about that.

Anyways, I shared to a lot of local Facebook groups—a lot of the real estate groups. Because of that, I had a lot of organic reach, and I ended up building these relationships.

Where people would send me referrals to. A couple of properties came from referrals. So, yeah, almost 100% through this, like organic posting, reels, and posting content, and then a couple through referrals of networking in the area.

Jeremy: Okay, and I think, Merritt, for those of you all watching, definitely check out his content. But you've definitely gotten comfortable behind the camera. Feel like that? Yeah, we've evolved. I love how you're in the car a lot—that's your recording studio.

Merritt: Yeah, so I have four kids. Yeah, so I have four kids, and kids can be noisy, so the car is like a nice quiet place that's always quiet. And I'm very good at fitting things in. I work a full-time job, obviously my own two properties plus the side business, and I'm involved with my church, so I'm pretty busy.

Jeremy: You’re doing a lot, you’re doing a lot.

Merritt: Finding those moments to fit things in is really key, and I'm like, I'll fit it in when I can fit it in. A lot of people make excuses like, "I'm too busy, I can't do it." So, I'm like, "Hey, I'm gonna do this in the car." Like, it works for me.

Jeremy: Consistency is everything. And I think, and I tell this to folk in our Mastermind, especially those who are doing Arbitrage or co-hosting, it's really—don't just, like, "Alright, I gotta do 10 hours. I gotta go all day and do a reach-out to potential landlords or potential co-host clients." Make sure you're consistent. If you're gonna do 20 minutes a day, do 20 minutes a day, right? Whatever it may be. Consistency is more important—it’s the most important, honestly.

Merritt: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So, I think I realized that I don't have the capacity right now to do long-form, right? I wanted to do long-form media, and I actually came from—I was a tech director at a pretty large church before what I do now. So, I was always in front of the camera, pretty comfortable in that regard, editing and that kind of stuff. But yeah, I just realized that I couldn't really have the capacity to be consistent with long-form, right?

So, I was like, what can I be consistent with? I could do minute reels. I could do this, and I could figure out ways to edit. I still edit in-house and stuff, and it works. Obviously, growing is super slow, and it's—I'm committed.

Jeremy: You've got clients. I mean, regardless, I'm not—and this is an Airbnb podcast, not a social media podcast.

Merritt: Yeah, right.

Jeremy: Regardless of how much reach you've had and whatever. I mean, I'm watching, so I mean, I don't know. Maybe there’s something about that. Regardless of, uh—you've got clients.

Merritt: Yeah, exactly, exactly. So, at the end of the day, it's like, successful, right? Because of that.

Jeremy: Yeah, you really kind of established yourself as the local domain expert in Syracuse. Yeah, in a medium-sized city.

Not a real city, but we've been talking—we've been working on saying, "Alright, Syracuse, like, the types of properties you're getting in the area are actually a lot of times more rural properties, more sparse." And you're thinking about trying to add a new location, a more densely populated area to your management portfolio. Walk us through kind of our conversations there. I know it’s very recent in the development, but kind of what we've been progressing, guys.

And I want to touch on this—Merritt's on his way. I see it. He's on his way. He's doing the right things, and I think this will be really good. So, when we run this back a year or two years from now, it’s, "Wow, we looked back and we're like, it's crazy how far we've come." And that's really what I want today to be—is like where Merritt is, how he's gone to where he is, and how he's being proactive into the future to create the life he wants.

Does that—is that—and I hope that resonates with folk. Because that's not everybody. I don’t only want to interview people who are like, "Oh yeah, I've got a two-million-dollar revenue business, right, 30 listings, or I own 46." And trust me, I interview them. Or, "I've sold 40 million dollars worth of Airbnbs last year." That's great. It's good to—it’s good to have folk who started more recently.

And are doing the right things to put themselves in the position they want to be. But yeah, Merritt, so what kind of—what are you thinking? What are the initiatives for new growth?

Merritt: Yeah, so like you mentioned, already looking at new markets. And I think one of the things you said that really stood out to me is a market that is really saturated is great for a co-hosting business. Right? If you're investing, a saturated market can kind of be scary sometimes because you have to be top dog. You have to really like amenities galore, etc. But for a co-hosting business, you actually want a super saturated market. Like, you want a market that has tons of properties there.

And we broke down—like, you're going to have more vendors. You're going to have more pool maintenance people. You're going to have more—like, anyone you need to run a short-term rental successfully will kind of already be in that market, so it'll be a lot easier. So, yeah.

So I think my focus now is marketing to another market that has a lot of properties in it. But, like I said, this area doesn't have too many properties, so it's hard to scale. And I also want to do bigger numbers and do bigger deals, so I need to go to a market where those things exist.

So, I'm working currently on building out a website—a landing page for a specific market. I'm building out a Google My Business to hit that market. I've also been doing some cold outreach to cleaners for referral fees. So, I went on Turno and did a fake bid, like a fake property, and I got a bunch of bids. And I just started building relationships. So, nothing from that yet, but I'm just trying to think of creative ways to connect with people in that market.

So, we're looking at the Kissimmee and Orlando market. So, I'm targeting that market. I'm looking for creative ways to market to market there and to kind of build a home base in that second market so that I could scale a lot quicker.

Jeremy: Yeah, exactly. And that's—Merritt and I have been talking about creative ways because he's never—I mean, have you even been to Kissimmee or Orlando? Disney?

Merritt: I've been to Orlando, like, probably over 10 years ago.

Jeremy: Yeah, got it. But you know, we're establishing a new operation in a new place. Yeah, building relationships. And for co-hosting, a lot of times you get referrals. Referrals are the best way to—and the best way to get referrals is to tell people you'll literally pay them if they bring you a co-host client or property management client. You'll pay them $500, which, if it's a property in Kissimmee, they're pretty consistent. They pull in probably $60K, $70K, $80K, $100K a year.

So, if you're taking 20% co-host on a $60K a year property, that's $12,000 or $1,000 a month. So, you can afford—you can afford to pay $500, right, to get a referral. So, you know, a place that you're not physically in, you've got to be creative. If you're there, obviously, you can reach out to people. You can say, "Hey, let's meet up and have conversations." But if you're not there, you've got to do it a different way.

Another way I know folk do it—and we haven't touched on this yet—but actually, JD, cool guy who came to one of our meetups in New York, he has 50 co-hosts, and he does paid ads. He does paid ads to get co-host clients.

Merritt: So, pay-per-click or Facebook, or which one?

Jeremy: Yeah, exactly, pay-per-click. Yeah. I was—I did—like, we met, or he came to our mass—or he came to our meetup, and then I DM'd him. And next thing I knew, I saw all of his ads were starting to pop up to me, which was pretty funny. It was nice.

Merritt: I mean, like, it's cool because they're creating that landing page. That will get us ready for that, right? Like, the Google Drive is the landing page, and it's that much easier to just pay for—to do some pay-per-click ads on there.

Yeah, that's a great strategy. I'm also going to call realtors, which you mentioned. Do the same thing—referral fee for realtors. And I was doing the referral fee thing too. I think I needed to just up the ante because before you mentioned that, I was offering $250 to cleaners. But yeah, maybe $500 is a little more incentivizing.

Jeremy: Absolutely. $500—I mean, that's kind of, uh, I'd say like the pretty standard rate from what I've seen. And I think it's great, honestly, and a great part. And maybe you can touch on what the value is in being in a mastermind and just having a community and network of folk who are all doing the same things, who are talking to people, and kind of leveling up together. But yeah, maybe touch on that—I guess what your experience has been.

Well, hey, first of all, how did we meet? I think that's kind of a funny story. I want to hear it from your perspective. And then, yeah.

Merritt: So, I knew about your content from my friend Connor Schwartz, and so I'd been following you on social. But I went—we both went to the Wealthy Way Hollywood conference, Ryan Pineda. And I was—it’s kind of far from here, like across the whole country. But I went solo. I didn't really know anyone out there, and it’s kind of crazy.

Yeah, so, like, we were eating lunch, and you and—I'm blanking here.

Jeremy: Patrick

Merritt: Yeah, you and Patrick, there you go, you and Patrick walk by. And I hadn't met—I had Facebooked Patrick, "Hey, let's meet up," because we were Facebook friends. And then I was like, "Hey, I think I recognize your face." And I was like, "Oh, you're Jeremy," right? So, it’s kind of a cool coincidence.

And then we had lunch together, and then we went to—we went clubbing together.

Jeremy: It was Merritt’s birthday, and I don’t go clubbing. Yeah, I used to go clubbing, definitely. But when someone says, "Hey, it’s my birthday," and my—I also have family in L.A., and they’re in hospitality. And when I say hospitality, they’re literally in clubbing—it’s what they do for work.

So, when he told me that it was his birthday, and my cousin said, "Hey, if you want to go to Sound Nightclub, we can help you out," then I was like, "Alright, looks like we’re going clubbing, Merritt come on."

Merritt: Yeah, listen, kind of a cool, serendipitous event. Like, I don’t—I literally never have been clubbing, believe it or not. I got married so young, and I started having kids right away. So, it was like family time, family mode from the get-go. But it was fun—it was a fun experience. And it was kind of a cool way to connect with you as well, and you and Blake, and get to know you guys a little bit.

Jeremy: So, yeah. And then we went back to the hotel, and I don’t think—there’s a pretty interesting experience.

Merritt: Yes, I had a nice chat with Rob Abasalo.

Jeremy: Yeah, Robuilt was at the hotel, so we had a good, a good 1 a.m. conversation with him and his colleague, but a really cool guy.

Merritt: Yeah, super nice guy. He runs operations for Rob, right?

Jeremy: Yeah, the real estate side of things.

Merritt: Memorable experience. And then the value of the mastermind, right? And you talked about the mastermind a little bit afterwards. And I’ve actually been—like, my whole goal, my whole goal for this year, was to level up, which is part of the reason I went to this conference, right?

Like, I wanted to go—my goal was to go to two conferences this year, and that was one of them. And so, because of this kind of relationship, right, like, I never would have met you. We never would have gone out and hung out. I never would have really known about your Mastermind or had that relationship built. And that networking is really why I've been trying to—like, I've been trying to commit to that—to that leveling up and networking.

So, I think, for the same reason I went to the conference is the same reason I joined this Mastermind, right? I'm wanting to hold myself to a higher standard. I'm wanting to be connected with major players—like people who are willing to put skin in the game and invest in themselves, invest in their education. And so, joining this Mastermind was that for me, right? It's like the ability to be connected with you and some—a lot of your experience that you have in this industry, but also for the other people in the cohort or whatever to build relationships and network.

And I mean, I've only been in it for a little bit now, but it's been really great so far to just have that resource there.

Jeremy: Yeah, I think it's awesome. Well, I think it was funny how our Mastermind's, like, relatively—I mean, it's relatively new. I mean, I've been working with, like, select folks for a couple years who, at this point, the folk I've been working with for one or two years are really doing well.

So, but for most people, it's like kind of the first several months, because I didn't really open it up to kind of folk I didn't immediately know until relatively recently. But it's like starting to see folk who are just getting listings, and then they're using our design toolkits.

Because everything that we use—all the resources that we have developed, that we use on a regular basis—our squad uses. Like, everyone uses, everyone gets access to. We don't hold anything back. Even all the little tips and tricks, like, we try to get everything in front of everyone.

But one of the most—one of the most, like, visible signs of that is our design toolkits. Not even— not only a furniture list. People normally say "furniture list," but we don't—we share a lot more than a furniture list, right? We share, like, literally, "This is a six-bedroom house. This is, like, every room in the house, every single thing—every single thing in that room that we ordered, put together."

Yeah, can flow seamlessly. And, like, we continuously do new houses, so, you know, our design—and we've been—I mean, I don't know, in your opinion, I think we went through it yesterday, kind of like the evolution of our design. And I looked back to, like, on my first property, and I'm like, "Damn. Yeah, this was it. I mean, not very good."

Merritt: Yeah, no, yeah, totally. No, that's—I love that too. I mean, there's so many resources, like, that are just really valuable. Yeah.

Jeremy: But it was—it’s cool to see. We had a design toolkit from three months ago that was literally, like, what we designed our properties with that we launched earlier this year. And then we just had a new design toolkit built, like, a month ago. And it's just funny to see.

People who launched their properties three months ago, like, they look a certain way. And then the ones who launched their properties, like, last month—they look—like, everyone's looks similar based on when they're launching properties. And they're really good.

I mean, and something—I'm just—maybe I would like your thoughts on this: just, like, the importance of design, yeah, and just having really good listings.

Merritt: Yeah, absolutely. It's interesting. One of the properties that I took on to manage—it was going to potentially be an Arbitrage deal, but I ended up just going co-hosting with it. Technically, I'm the host, so it's, like, more of a property management situation. But we went all out on the design.

There was some furniture already there, but we really put a lot of detail into it, and accent walls and stuff. And it's one of the best-performing properties in my portfolio because we went so heavy on the design, right?

And it's making me want to go back to my second listing, which is still kind of, like, some of the furniture was included in the sale kind of situation. And I'm like, "You know what? It's time to go back and do, like, a whole revamp and refresh the pictures, refresh the design," because I see the value in how much—how many more bookings you get and how much more the calendar is full. Yeah, it's, like, incredible.

Jeremy: It's actually funny. I'd say one of—there's been a lot of great aspects of starting to work with others. And it was something I was, like, a little reluctant to do at first. And honestly, it took me, again, a couple of years of folks really asking me, and then I finally was like, "Alright, I'll do it."

But one of the cool things is just seeing—kind of, like, you get more data points than just your own portfolio. I got a call with my Airbnb account manager yesterday. I have a monthly call. They go over my own portfolio, my year-over-years, my little markets.

But you don't really get exposure to the insights of 20, 30, 40—yeah, 40 different people's listings in different areas. And yeah, seeing how every folk did things differently. But, I mean, I'll just give one example for us.

The folk we have in our program who have used—who have just launched a property and have used our designs and also gotten our feedback on them—they're crushing it. Like, right—same. Lucrative properties.

Merritt: Right, right.

Jeremy: We have had a lesser number of examples where, like, someone kind of inherited, like, a furniture of a property.

Merritt: Yes.

Jeremy: And I told them, like, I'm just gonna be honest. I'm not gonna—I mean, I'm not gonna tell you, "Oh, spend 30 grand, 20 or 15 grand on furniture." Like, if it's—but I'm gonna be honest, like, it doesn’t.

Merritt: Yeah.

Jeremy: And they're just, like, not doing that well.

Yeah, it's like—I mean, I—like I've told—I recommend it. We obviously give the resources of how to design well. If you get something that someone else furnished, they're not thinking of how to do. We think a lot. Um, yeah, how do we create what people are going to pay a premium for, right? And there's a reason why we have our toolkits and our resources set up a certain way. So, if you don't use the resources, then… So, it's been good to see, like, all right, that's really validating that.

Merritt: Like, yeah, I would also add to that as a co-host, as like a newer co-host property manager for short-term rentals, I'm learning to read what the investor or homeowner will respond to with my suggestions and, yeah, my consultation, right?

So, yep, I've taken on a couple of properties where none of my consultation—like, none of my advice, none of my design pointers—were taken on..

Jeremy: and they're not doing well.

Merritt: They don't do well, exactly. And at that point, you feel a little powerless because, as a co-host, right, it's like your cash isn't in the game, right? You're managing it for a service fee.

And so, it's a learning curve there because I want to work with folks who are willing and ready to crush it, right? Yeah, you want their property to be the best in the market. And if they allow me to help formulate it in that way and to use the resources we have here in The Mastermind, and like really make the property pop and go to the top of the charts in that area, then I want to take on those kinds of clients, right?

Versus the clients who are like, "I'm just gonna leave that dusty old grandma's bed in there and the quilts," and they're not really wanting to put the money in to make it a winner. So, that's a learning curve for me as I'm taking on co-hosting clients—trying to read and understand the clients who are ready to take it to the next level and the clients who aren't.

But I'm trying to stay sharp as I get new leads to make sure I'm working with clients who are ready to crush it.

Jeremy: Exactly. And I think that's something you learn. Also, to kind of compare that to my journey, when I started, I was heavy into co-hosting. And I still am. I still—I haven't lost co-host clients; I just haven't expanded as much.

But I'm very—if I take a new client at this point, like, it has to be a situation. Because a lot of times I do more vacation homes where, in my co-host portfolio, the homeowners want to go there certain periods. But if they're like, "Yeah, we're gonna go there a lot," or, "This is actually, like, our vacation home," I'm like, "All right, well, then it's your vacation home—or get someone else."

Whereas for me, it's not like, "We'll go maybe if the calendar is open, but really we want this thing rented and making money." Like, that's our first priority.

Merrit: Yeah.

Jeremy: And that's where I'm like, "All right, I'll work with you then."

Merrit: Yeah, no, that's interesting because that's definitely another barrier to being a co-host, right? It's the folks who are like, "Yeah, I just want to rent it on the side when I'm not using it," right? And I'm like, "You know, you're not gonna do very well."

I mean, I had one lead come to me, and it was some kind of timeshare situation where he had a certain number of weeks at the property a year, and he wanted me to co-host it. Like, there's no money in that for me. I'm sorry. Like, 12 weeks of the year it's an Airbnb, and the rest it's time-shared. You have to learn it's not a good fit, right?

And when it's not going to be—it's not going to be. I mean, obviously, I'm a business. I'm trying to make money, right?

And so, yeah, I'm also leaning more into the vacation homes and the more luxury short-term rental properties versus the mom-and-pop kind of thing. Although, obviously, I have some of those in my portfolio, and they're doing great. But I'm kind of on that same line where I'm trying to be more selective and really qualify my leads a little bit better.

Jeremy: And I think one of the reasons I recommended Kissimmee, which we looked over as a pretty big swath of the country, was you have a lot of foreign investors who just park their money in Disney, right? Literally, they just—that's what the—it’s literally them just saying, "Hey, I have money, I want to invest."

Like, a lot of Canadian and Chinese investors, where in Canada you can't make really any returns doing pretty much anything right now, which is honestly, I think, a large reason why there's a pretty overrepresentation of Canadian folk in our program.

And honestly, the Canadians crush it because they have—if they want to invest, there's just no—like, in Canada, there's just no way. So, they're motivated.

Definitely. And then also, you have a lot of, like, Chinese folk who invest in Disney—this is what I've heard. I've been—and I talk to people all the time who are doing things in different places. So, it's really—it's kind of a good situation for a co-host because it's someone who's literally already not local. They're already out of the country, so they're not going to be like, "Hey Merit, why are you in Upstate New York today?"

Merritt: Yeah, right.

Jeremy: Right. To them, you're in America.

Merritt: Yeah. My pitch, too, for the remote co-hosting thing is—and hopefully this is good, you can actually give me your feedback on this—but what I tell people, because I had, well, all over the state, even though—how far are you? You're three, four hours?

But my pitch is, "Listen, my personal Airbnb is literally three blocks away, and I've stepped foot in it once last year, because I build such a good team and such good systems that I'm not the one that's going to be plunging the toilet because I have a great team in place." So, that's kind of the pitch I give people.

Anyways, "Listen, I have one down the street from me. I don't physically go there. I'm good at managing, and I'm good at building teams, and I'm good at making sure that those teams have the quality that we desire." So, that's kind of the pitch I've been using.

I don't know your feedback—like, how you picture.

Jeremy: Bro, that's what I'm here for. This is basic. You should listen to—I think it actually came out yesterday—but my podcast with Bailey Kramer, who started with co-hosting, actually dropped out of school to build his co-host business. He has—I think at one point he was up to 20, 30 co-host listings. I think he shed it back, like kind of got rid of the clients he didn't like, and has been building, started buying with his co-host income.

But what he says—because, obviously, he gets asked this all the time—is just, "To be honest, you don't want—if I was like, let's say, all right, you have a plumbing issue, the toilet's not working, right? What am I gonna do? Regardless if I'm there or I'm on the beach somewhere—I mean, he doesn't say 'I'm on the beach somewhere,' but—regardless if I'm there or 300 miles away, I'm gonna call my plumber, right, to get out."

Merritt: Exactly. Exactly.

Jeremy: No matter what. So, it doesn't really matter. Like, we have the people, I have the team, like, I have the teams, the systems, the operations in place.

Merritt: That's validating to hear that perspective.

Jeremy: Exactly.

Merritt: That's kind of the perspective I take too.

Jeremy: Yeah. What do you want me to do, right? The electrical's not working? Okay, I'm gonna get an electrician.

Merritt: And I think that premise works across most of real estate, too. Like, the guys who start by flipping homes and they start flipping them themselves, right? They start, like, swinging the hammer, right?

I'm a pretty handy guy, actually, and I would be tempted to do that. But I know that I could hire someone better than me, right? I know that I can pay someone to do the job faster, solve problems quicker, and do the actual end result better than me when it comes to doing some of those operational tasks.

So, why would I do it myself, right? I want to build a business. I don't want to build, like, a handyman service or whatever. I want to build a legitimate business. So, I think that same premise is true across this, right? Like, the skills I need are building systems and teams. That's the skill I need to bring to the table, right?

Jeremy: Like, what are my skills? I've done several home renovations. Like, the ones we've bought have a lot of times been heavier renovations, where I'm good at engineering, like, a very inexpensive, pretty substantial home renovation.

So, if we have to do electrical, I'll figure out how to create an electrical system, figure out what the code is, you know, how to trench and run electrical from the panel all the way around, like, the property to wherever it needs to be, and get someone with a ditch switch to do it. Just to figure out how to do things inexpensively.

But, like, little easy things, right? I have no idea. If it's, like, a flapper in the toilet, like, the toilet's a little messed up…

Merritt: let it fly.

Jeremy: No, like, the little flapper thingy and, like, the little jiggle stuff—I'm like, "I don't know what's going on here."

Merritt: I hate the flapper thing and the jiggle stuff, man. I hate it.

Jeremy: Yeah. And that's, like, easy stuff you could probably Google and figure out what's wrong with it, but that's not me.

I can figure out the hard things, but, like, easy little things—nah, that's not my cup of tea. I'm specializing…

Merritt: It's the worst. Anyways.

Jeremy: Yeah, like, I'm specialized in taking a hundred-thousand-dollar renovation and making it like a $40,000 or $50,000 renovation. That's what I try to do. And then, any little—I don't care if I'm paying $700 or $500 for something small, right? And that's just something that—you want to be—you—where's your time best spent? But I think that's exactly—that's what's important to think of.

It's like, for Merritt, what is the highest and best use of your time? How do you leverage yourself and things? And I don't want to use, like, Pineda terminology, but multiply—that's the same thing. Like, how do you multiply yourself?

Merritt: Yeah, that's really what I'm—that's really what I'm thinking about. And, like, at the moment—and maybe it's just because leads have slowed down a little bit from my organic reach. And I'm also—I'm kind of trying to tap away from my local market here.

But that's really something I've been thinking about a lot. It's really, A) getting more leads on my table that I can deal with—that's the next phase I want to get to. And basically, like, closing those deals with the $70K to $100K-a-year gross properties.

Getting those deals on my table and getting those deals closed is really my highest value thing right now, right? At least from my perspective. Like, getting that going is really where I need to be, which I think is more valuable than, "Yeah, let me go actually plunge a toilet."

Jeremy: Merritt, you're—hey, well, you're a man of many talents. You sent me over music. Unfortunately, I did not have the opportunity to listen to it, but Merritt makes music. Apparently, he's—apparently, he's good at plunging toilets, but not what you should be doing.

Merritt: Yeah, like eight, eight out of ten toilet plunger.

Jeremy: Yeah. So, your current portfolio, I mean, it's kind of—where is it scattered around? About New York, Syracuse area?

Merritt: Yeah, so, most of them are in Syracuse proper. I have one that's in a suburb of Syracuse. That property does really well. We call it the Woodland Shire because it has this kind of live-edge siding. The inside—they did a little bit of hobbit-esque décor, and that property does pretty well.

And then I have two outside of the Syracuse area. I have one in Thousand Islands, like I said, and then one in Deposit, New York, which is kind of like fly fishing. It's a log cabin as well. But the majority of them are in Syracuse proper.

Jeremy: Got it. And that's probably—logistically—the ones in Syracuse proper are probably a lot easier than the ones in Thousand Islands and all the other places.

Merritt: Yeah, so, like, the two that are outside of my region—I've had the issue we talked about earlier, like vendor issues, right? Like, yeah, over—was it Memorial? Yeah, Memorial holiday weekend. I had a—the well was, like, kicking up dirt, and so we couldn't get a plumber out there.

I called every plumber on Google, and then I ended up—my cleaner ended up hooking me up with her handyman, who went out there. And luckily, the problem had already subsided because it was pretty much just, like, soil was kicked up because of a high water table.

But you have those more rural properties, and, like, finding a vendor in a pinch is really hard, right? Like, it's this tiny community. So, that's definitely a barrier I've been running into—finding vendors at those two more rural properties.

The city properties—I have multiple cleaning teams, multiple maintenance crews. I have a property manager here locally who is awesome. She handles, like, a lot of the communication and a lot of resolving issues. I have a guy who takes out the trash every week.

Like, the logistics of the city properties is a lot easier because it's kind of in a bigger city, and I can build out vendor teams a lot easier than I can in the rural areas.

Jeremy: Yeah, I would say so. When, Merritt, when you start buying—I know you bought some, but we've also talked about raising capital. Yes, and doing bigger deals, yeah.

So, when you do co-host, kind of having one property in one area that has its own cleaning team, its own handyman, and its own plumber is not—it's not great. But, right, when you start buying, a lot of times I consider being rural like a moat—being in a place with sparse resources. And something that means that Tech Fester, who's a $100 million short-term rental fund, they're not going to go there. They're not going to go there and launch 10 properties, right?

Merritt: Because smaller ponds

Jeremy: Well, it's a smaller pond. But it's just like the logistics required to get that operation up and running are a lot. But once you have that team—so we have properties on our lake in rural North Carolina where we own four, yeah, and we also manage four on that lake. That's also where I have a seven-boat rental business.

We have a full-time crew, right? Like, people—when we call folk, they come. Yeah. Where they probably won't come for other people because we have scale, we have the operations in place. So, we could outperform everybody. Whenever I see reviews on other properties there, they're like, "We didn't have water for three days, and they couldn't get anyone to come out." We don't have that issue—knock on wood.

Merritt: Yeah, that's good. basically—like, you have a little bit—you’re not competing against multi-million-dollar investor funds basically when you go more rural. Is that what you're saying?

Yeah, an area where you can dominate the market a little better.

Jeremy: Yeah, exactly. Where you don't have competition, or maybe you have competition, but it's not good competition.

Yes, like, you are going to be the top performer in that market, and you don't have to worry about 30 new Airbnbs popping up tomorrow. I'd say Western NC—same thing. We have a couple of properties there. We have, between our properties, kind of a handyman who loves working with us. Any issue—he’ll come out and deal with it.

So, we don't have that stress of not getting things resolved. Because that's really what a lot—I mean, you have issues in this game, right? You have.

Merritt: Yes. One of the things—one of the things though that I've been noticing. So, on AirDNA, there are a couple of top properties in Syracuse that did over $100K. They did $120K, and one did, like, maybe $130K. They were lofts downtown.

So, this market is a little bit like that, actually. Because if I put probably, like, another $20K into my single-family property, it's already in the top 10. I know that it would crush it all the more. So, like, I know that there is that capacity here because it's a smaller market, and there's less big-time investors.

Jeremy: Syracuse is a big city, we went over this earlier.

Merritt: Yeah, big city. Not rural.

Jeremy: Not Rural.

Merritt: Mid-size Metro. But yeah, I think even this market—if I did it right, like, my first few properties, right, like I kind of went budget on the furnishing, on the décor. Like, I do think there's even room for that here, although I definitely want to grow into some hotter markets.

But knowing that there were properties in this area—I think those two are not operational anymore—but they were doing $110K, $120K, $130K a year gross is kind of a cool opportunity at hand.

Jeremy: Those were arbitrages, I mean, then?

Merritt: Yeah, and I actually had two—two loft deals. It was a lead. There were no parking spaces. There were a couple of things that went down. And then, legitimately, I was about ready to sign, and the landlord raised the rent $20K, making it, like, a little too squeezy on the margin for me.

So, I ended up pulling out. But it was two lofts downtown that I was going to arbitrage. They were gorgeous, too. But yeah, like, that's exactly the—that's exactly the thought I had. I saw those numbers, and I said, "Let me find a loft downtown to rent."

Jeremy: How far are you from Buffalo?

Merritt: Buffalo is two and a half, three hours. Not far at all.

Jeremy: Got it. Because, yeah, we—one mentee, initially, he started—he started back, I think, October, one of the—honestly, again, right when I kind of opened it up. And we got him—we found that there was a building downtown. Not in Buffalo, but in—what’s that town near Buffalo?

Merritt: Rochester. It’s between us.

Jeremy: Oh, okay. Yeah, it was in Rochester.

Merritt: Rochester’s like an hour and a half.

Jeremy: We were like, dang, well, I don't—essentially, we found a building there that was kind of like a loft-style building where there were several Airbnbs, and they seemed to do extremely well, especially relative to the rent rate. Turns out there's a convention center there, and he found—he was like, "Oh yeah, I know the property manager there." Like, he's in real estate there. And next thing, he was offered, like, several units in the building.

And I was like, "Damn, bro, this is great." And then, literally, like, he went on the tour, he got the approval.

Next day, he goes, "Oh yeah, I'm under contract on a house in the town over to buy and turn it into an Airbnb." And I'm like, I mean, obviously, that's great. It seems like you got a really good purchase price—all about it.

And then he gets it up, he gets it ready, going as an Airbnb, and, like, we help him kind of through the process. And then he goes, "I got an offer to sell it."

Merritt: Like, wow.

Jeremy: "I'm gonna sell it." I was just like, funny—you were pulling me all over the damn place.

Merritt: Yeah. And well, let's find some lofts like that in Syracuse or even Rochester. Honestly, I have a lot of contacts in Rochester. There's actually a larger—

Jeremy: Yeah, I mean, I’ll—I’ll find it, and I can shoot that.

Merritt: Yeah. And I'm actually like—I did the LLC, zero percent interest credit card thing. So, I'm, like, kind of ready to deploy that, whether it's an arbitrage deal or something else.

But yeah, that's something I'm super interested in, especially, like, a loft that has a little, like, outdoor terrace or, like, patio, which one of the ones that was high-performing—you had that. That would just crush it here or in Rochester.

Jeremy: Yeah, absolutely. And you just find the little—and that's, like, really what this game is—like, finding properties in areas and being like, "What the heck?"

Merritt: Yeah.

Jeremy: This thing is crushing it, exactly. And you look up the purchase price, or you look up the rent, and you're like, "Damn, you're not paying that much." That's really what it is. I feel like people always go, "Oh, what's a good area?"

I mean, I'm not going to tell you Rochester is a good area. I'm not going to tell you Syracuse is a good area. I'm not going to tell you—right?

Merritt: Anywhere you can find the diamond in the rough, basically, if you do it right.

Jeremy: Yeah. Or, like, you find the one specific part of the town that's a block away from a convention center—or, I mean, that's an example—or the houses—there's two houses in a market with a pool, and they're both pulling in $130K, whereas everything else is pulling in $60K. Like, just random. You just find random things.

And as an investor, it's your job. And that's where short-term rentals is just less, I say, quote-unquote, like, "efficient." Like, meaning that, like, it's not a perfect market. Like, you can't just say, "Oh, a four-bedroom here automatically is going to make this much," right?

There's a lot of, like, variables and dislocations. But because of that, it makes it where there's opportunity, right? That's the beautiful thing…

Merritt: About finding that opportunity that no one else found. Like, that—that’s what is going to make a good deal.

Actually, your new house that you closed on is, like, a great example of that, right? Like, you found a new opportunity in a market that's not super oversaturated, that you're just going to amenitize out the wazoo. And, like, finding that opportunity is kind of how you win.

Jeremy: And we'll see. And, like, then I'll be a data point for everybody because this is a new strategy for me. And I obviously walked everyone through—this was my strategy at this time. This was, like, my thesis.

Yeah, this was my thesis with this house here. This was, like—every time I bought has had some sort of, "I think this is going to do this for this reason." It's not—honestly, normally, it isn't like, "Hey, I have this perfect house right next door that's doing this exact amount." That's right. That's not how it is.

So, then I'll be—well, honestly, and obviously, again, another great reason why we have this Mastermind is because I'm buying this like a month after Blake bought another one in the area, and he's crushing it, right? Like, absolutely crushing it.

And, like, he took it to another level. Like, he took a market where no one was doing anything. Well, actually, he did it after other ones of our mentees had launched arbitrage properties in the area, and they were crushing it.

Yeah, so, and that's—obviously, we got to be—when you're in, we can tell you exactly where and what we're doing. But that was good for me to see. Oh, wow, he just took it to another level. And damn, like, he's doing really well.

And I'm like, right, well, I'm going to take it to another level now and see what happens.

Merritt: That's awesome. We, like, kind of inspire each other to find these little—these gems that are waiting to be discovered.

Jeremy: Exactly, exactly. And it's just—it's a bunch of folk who are trying to find these things. Which, obviously, the more eyes and the more, you know, data and the more software and all that jazz you have, the more likelihood you're gonna find these, again, dislocations—like, things where it just doesn’t make sense, essentially.

That's really exciting. And, yeah, what are you excited for yourself? And, again, I want to—we're gonna do this again. Yeah, hold our words.

Today's June 23rd. I'm not exactly sure when this comes out, guys. This will actually be my last time doing it in this really crappy studio. This is my old—what will be my old apartment in Greenwich Village, New York. I'm moving in with my girlfriend.

We're going to get a nicer space. So, after this episode, whenever this airs, hopefully, I have a really cool podcast studio set up. But regardless of that—Merritt, what's on the docket for you? What can folk look forward to, and how do they watch your journey?

Merritt: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I would say I got my handle there in my title. So, if you follow me at Merritt Badge MGMT—that's TikTok, Instagram, etc.

But, yeah, I'm excited to—I really, the co-hosting thing for me is kind of a toolkit to get me to my end zone of investing, right? Like, my end zone is using that money completely for savings and then investing in my own arbitrage and in my own purchases.

So, that's really what I'm excited about—really, like, creating this cash flow to further my journey of investing.

Jeremy: I will cut in—and I don't think I've shared this—and, again, I try to share things I've seen: co-host businesses you can actually sell. They were selling—for vacation rental manager businesses—they were selling during 2020, 2021, 2022 for, like, five, six times annual contracted revenue, which was, like, pretty nuts.

It has moved down, like, a lot. It might be, like, two or three times right now. But still, people tell me, like, arbitrage versus co-hosting—you know, when I do any sort of investment, I want to think about what is, like, my potential exit plan, right?

So, Merritt, you want to build this business to parlay you into your own—building out an awesome real estate portfolio?

Merritt: Yep.

Jeremy: Got it. And with co-hosting, like, obviously, you get the cash flow from it, but also, at a certain point, you get to 40, 50 properties—again, if they're in one place, you know, that definitely helps. Being in one place versus one here, one there, one there, right? You can sell that.

I mean, also, there's a lot of folk trying to get into Airbnb right now. Who want to build these businesses but know the amount of legwork it takes to build that client list.

Merritt: Yeah.

Jeremy: But you get 50 properties—let's say they're, on average, making $50K a year. So, that's $10,000 a piece for the property manager. Times $10,000, times 50, that's what? $500,000.

Merritt: Yeah, exactly.

Jeremy: Even if you sold that at three times revenue, that's $1.5 million. And then you can take that $1.5 million, leveraging DSCR loans or different financing—you can leverage that up, probably to $4 million, $4.5 million worth of real estate.

Merritt: Exactly. Yeah, so it's a cash flow, but it's also the equity and the ownership of the business.

Jeremy: It's a business. I mean, arbitrage, too, because you just can't sell an arbitrage business. I mean, you might be trying to sell the contracts—

Merritt: It's just—

Jeremy: Maybe you could, like, scheme someone, and it might be out—

Merritt: Yeah, I've seen them try.

Jeremy Yeah, maybe you can. Yeah, you can transfer—you can put on, like, a small scale with one landlord. Maybe they'll just kind of look the other way. But if you have a 100-unit portfolio. And 25 listings in a building, and then what? You're buying out three months left on a lease?

Merritt: Yes.

Jeremy: Exactly. You know, how does the math—how does the math on that work? Whereas, like, co-hosting, you have a predictable churn. Let's say you have 50 clients—you can expect to lose five of them, but you can also expect to pick up five.

Okay, so it's like you have predictable numbers, whereas with arbitrage, yeah, it's just really hard to underwrite one of those acquisitions. So, it's—again, I like to think about, what's my exit plan for my arbitrage properties? Like, I have none. It's just cash flow them and continue to re-sign.

I don't have any expectation that one day I'm gonna sell them. I mean, maybe I could, like, on a one-on-one basis, but I'm discounting that. Whereas, like, co-hosting, really, like, you can have an—yeah, realistically have an exit plan.

Merritt: So, I wasn't even awakened to that till actually when we were hanging with you and Patrick, who—

Jeremy: like, he bought one.

Merritt: He bought a 20-unit on creative finance. He bought a 20-unit co-hosting business.

I think—what was it? 20? I—roughly.

Jeremy: Yeah, probably like that.

Merritt: It opened my eyes to this idea, though.

Jeremy: I was like, "Why?" I was like, "Why'd you buy it?

Merritt: You bought a headache! No, I'm just kidding. But it's one of those deals where, like,

Jeremy: You can make a 20-unit co-hosting business. He was like, "I don't know. I'm having trouble. It was just easier to buy one." I'm like, "All right, fair enough."

Merritt: Yeah, yeah. Probably faster—faster scale. But it's kind of one of those deals—like, it at least opened my eyes to this idea. That was also—this business that could be sold. I totally agree with you there. That's pretty exciting to me.

Jeremy: Exactly. So, it's all good stuff. So, yeah, what can we—what can we be on the look—are you investing, and where can they find or follow you?

Merritt: Yeah, so, @merrittbadgeMGMT—that's my handle for everything: Instagram, TikTok, etc. I'd love to chat with anybody. I'd love to help folks out with the knowledge I have already and also network with folks who are way above me and doing awesome stuff.

Jeremy: And what's—and I should have asked this first—but what's your pro tip?

Merritt: My pro tip? My pro tip is—let's see. Oh geez, caught me off guard with this one.

Jeremy: Could be the networking one. I mean, they've been pretty adamant.

Merritt: Yeah. No, I would say my pro tip is: find the person for your team that's really gonna be, like, the point person. So, like, my local property manager—her name is Brenda—she has really allowed me to scale and to build out a great business.

And, like, finding that person who you really trust to do that has been huge because it's allowed me to focus on growing and on acquisitions. And, yeah, so, find your point acquisition person who's really going to take the lead on that.

Jeremy: I think that's—so, your, like, ops manager?

Merritt: Exactly, yeah.

Jeremy: And this is something we've actually been discussing internally, Blake and I, about our portfolios because we have virtual assistants who, in a way, are, like, somewhat ops managers. But we definitely have to get pulled into things more.

And we do have local—our local crews—who also, in a way, are ops managers. But really, just having one dedicated—yep, like, American, probably, kind of ops manager for the entire portfolio.

Where, you know, they can talk to a plumber, electrician, handyman better than someone in the Philippines can, right?

Merritt: Right, totally. And also, not to mention, it creates one more buffer point where you're, like, working on your business, not in it, right?

Jeremy: Exactly.

Merritt: Where, like, the VAs then reach out to the ops manager instead of reaching up to you directly. And then they solve the problem. You don't even hear about it unless it's, like, the house is on fire.

Jeremy: Exactly. Yep, yep, exactly. And that's—because I do feeling, guys. I will admit this: I'm a million-dollar minimum—like, million-dollar revenue business, all that good stuff, great listings.

I check, like, a lot. I check my stuff. I check, yeah. I check to make sure our VAs are responding to people.

I check to make sure how quickly they're responding to them, that they're answering and saying the right things—like, stuff like that. And I'm like, I don't want to be checking over your guys' work anymore. So, having someone who's, like, checking over their work.

It just creates—you know me, I'm talking to people all day. I'm working on the software that we have built out, BNBCalc, making that better, reaching more people. I'm creating more content, and that's where I'm focused—on that creativity.

Merritt: And then, having ideally, like, the ops manager is also auditing your systems, right? "Hey, is this our best system? Is this the best software solution right now? How can we improve or utilize this software solution in a better way?" Like, they're the person doing that so that you can focus kind of on the bigger picture of things.

Jeremy: Exactly. And, like, to be frank, I don't look. When we initially built out our—we use Monday.com and we use Notion some—for our

Merritt: CRM?

Jeremy: not our CRM but our resources, where all of our SOPs, like standard operating procedures, are stored—I don't even look in it anymore. Which—right. And I'm like, I probably should. I should have someone who's literally just making sure that everything is organized and documented.

Like, when our VA says something, I'm like, "Why the heck did you say that? What's our notes on that?" And they send me something, and I'm like, "Ooh, that's wrong."

When I—like, I don't like that being the case where I'm checking, I'm catching it on, like, the guest's message where it's wrong info. And I could—yes, I could go in myself, and I could review everything in our SOPs and make sure everything is right.

I totally could do that. But I'm at the point where I don't want to.

Merritt: I'm gonna say—I really wasn't aware that this was an interview, but I'm glad to be here.

Jeremy: Yeah, yeah, all right. Merritt, wow.

Merritt: I’m just kidding.

[Laughter]

Jeremy: Looks like we’re talking. This is a mastermind baby.

Merritt: Here's my resume, no, I’m just kidding.

Jeremy: Yeah. Well, I mean, I'm thinking also—like, not, this is tall guy with Blake yesterday—but there's a lot of, like, young folk out there who are trying to get into the game on things and, like, provide their expertise or, sorry, their time, and kind of, in return, get, like, that mentorship.

And that's—like, for the calculator, we had kind of, like, an intern who reached out and was like, "I'm a user. I would love to kind of provide value."

Merritt: That's cool.

Jeremy: So, I'm definitely—some people listen to this—young hustlers—like, you want to provide folk like Merritt or myself value. We like value, and we're guys where we like to help other people out too. So, yeah, if y'all are listening, feel free to reach out. Feel free to reach out to either of us.

Any last words or anything you want to—want to share?

Merritt: Yeah, that—I love that we ended on there. I have a lot of people who approach me, "Hey, I want to get involved, I want to," but they don't do that value thing, right? Where they're like, "Hey, let me provide value. How can I help your operation go well?"

I would say that's a big one, right? If you're wanting to network and get in the game, offer someone some level of value, and maybe even do a month of something for free. Like, just give that value so that you become indispensable, right?

Like, you—and then, at that point, you will gain the knowledge, you will gain the networking you need, you'll be connected with the folks you need to be connected with.

And so, yeah, if you're brand new and interested and looking to get in the game, I definitely suggest doing that.

And then, obviously, my other pro tip is: put yourself out on social media. Don't be afraid. Like, you're gonna—you're gonna say some stupid things. You might say something wrong. Your editing might be crappy. But just put yourself out there.

Doing that alone is gonna be huge, and it's going to build a lot of trust.

That's the thing—when people start talking to me, they already trust me. I've, like, never met them, but they see my face, right? Like, they see my mustache, they see my glasses, and so they trust me already when they talk to me.

And I'm like, I don't even know you, but you trust me. Put yourself on social media. Put yourself out there. It's going to be—it's going to be huge for your business. So, that's my other free pro tip for you.

Jeremy: Awesome, guys. Well, hope you all got some value from us today, and definitely stay tuned. We're gonna have Merritt back, and I'm super stoked for that. Again, we timestamped today, so, yeah.

Merritt: It’ll be 10x, we'll be 10x.

Jeremy: Exactly. If it's not, then—I don't know.

Merritt: I’m fired.

Jeremy: We'll be back at the club again, drowning our sorrows.

Merritt: Mourning, mourning.

Jeremy: We'll be crying. Totally kidding. But, guys, stay tuned. Stay tuned for this episode, future episodes, and, as always, share, comment. Love having you guys.

And, yeah, have a great weekend, everybody.